THE ASSISTENZ is the culmination of a four year creative hot streak as vivid as any part of CRISTAN VOGEL's long career. The trio of dancefloor-oriented records formed by 2012's The Inertials, 2014's Polyphonic Beings and now THE ASSISTENZ are sensual pleasures first and foremost: a lifetime of study of frequencies and rhythms on the frontline of the world's clubs has been put into the creation of sounds that interface with the nervous system and emotional responses with extraordinary immediacy. But there's much more too: together with the more abstracted album Eselsbrücke, these form an enticing sonic narrative, encoded themes running through them, each part revealing more about the whole. THE ASSISTENZ, then, is many things: a personal document, a tribute to Copenhagen where it was recorded and after whose famous cemetery it is named – but also the final piece in this bigger puzzle, which unlocks untold secrets from the previous three records.

There's a deeper history, of course. CRISTIAN's productions going back to the start of the 1990s have woven their way into the fabric of underground culture. His own recent remasters of his early albums, and the Sub Rosa Classics 1993-1998 collections have shown just how potent his early work remains. But his new work exists in a very different world to those past works, and is far removed from the recent electronic generations who he has influenced too. In fact, as you listen to THE ASSISTENZ, you realise that there's no point making comparisons with other electronic producers at all. While you will certainly hear some of the most fundamental and enduring vectors of underground music – dub, electro, acid, funk – flowing through the tracks, even those things are rebuilt from the molecular level, created completely afresh with new, precise, but somewhat skewed vision.

CRISTIAN's understanding of music now is spectral. That is to say, with every step through his exploration of so.......więcej